Gabe Sparks
Created by Frank Wydra

Is Heaven missing an angel?

Rough-around-the-edges P.I. GABE SPARKS and his sassy girlfriend/associate, Connie McRath, an "old-fashioned upper crust" girl, make for an intriguing team, a savvy sort of Nick-and-Nora update, in Frank Wydra's "My Funny Valentine," a 2007 short story that's just dying for a follow-up.

I mean, gee, at the funeral of a friend, a small quartet follows up "Amazing Grace" with "Danny Boy," and Gabe sneers that "The only Irish in Nick was Bushmills."

How can you not love a guy that cracks wise like that?

Hopefully, Gabe -- whom the author suggests on his web site (with his tongue firmly in cheek, please, please, please) is the Archangel Gabriel -- will return.

I'm really not sure about this angel crap, but certainly the author knows his P.I. stuff. his agent is currently shopping around a couple of novels featuring another Detroit P.I. (Matt Jaxon) and he wrote an article for a bibliophile magazine on buying snd collecting the work of fellow Michigan author Loren D. Estleman.

SHORT STORIES

• "My Funny Valentine" (August 2007, EQMM)

RELATED LINKS

Aspects of Frank Wydra
The author's official web site.